Site Redesign (Again)

[Julie S.]

Hello all!

I had someone tell me that they didn't like all of the text on my home page and that it was hard to read the text color... so I redesigned my home page to not JUST have a lot of text on it and changed the font color.

I'm still in the process of bringing the other pages to match the navigation bar and general style, but my home page and some main pages are done.

What do you think? Can you read my text? Is it easy to navigate? Is it a place you would consider buying from?

Any other ways I could make it better?

=)
Julie

[LadyEye]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Hi Julie

Yes it looks nice, I can read the text and can navigate the site well ....

You can click the photos for your categories on your main page, however I also try to click the text you have underlined, consider linking that text as well ....

anything with an underline I try to click, lol .... so consider taking the underline off where you do not have or many not want to link ..

Good Luck!!

[choco777]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Looks great...yes, can read text...except bottom home pg. offering designer....too light. Move accept Visa.... Down a bit. Other wise great site, beutiful crisp clear photos of merchandise. Maybe another photo of you without cutting off of the top of head it is alright but would be better with full pic. Congrats. Much better than the last.

[scubadiver]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

The site is beautiful. Have you thought about bolding the text?

[Julie S.]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Perfect suggestions! Thank you very much... I agree with all of those.

The lighter text at bottom of home page is actually just random site related keywords... something people really don't need to read. I did that at the advice of someone else for Search Engine Optimization... I may keep it, I may not. I actually built the page so that everything a buyer really needs to see is located above the point where you would have to scroll down to see more. So, the things that aren't really "buyer friendly" are located below the scroll down point.

It's great to have "objective eyes" take a peek.

Thanks again! =)

Julie

[choco777]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Remember that bold text sometimes is harder to read.

[naghosthunter]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

yup site looks real good gonna have to keep wife from checking it out or i will go broke :)

[Bethers]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Julie, that "random" text at the bottom of the page could end up getting you banned by the se's. They are really looking for sites that are built properly and don't use black hat techniques. When they discover black hat techniques the do ban websites. That is black hat.

Now, if you want to use your pages and do a footer with links to them- or put in a mini site map down there using the anchor text - and making it good for your CUSTOMERS first - then it would be okay.

I don't want to tell you you followed bad advice - but there is a lot of that out there - ask a couple major companies that got banned by Google in the past year and they got back in by making corrections - but I'm not sure any of us with such small sites would even get them back to look again easily.

Your site looks great until that - and spam is spam where ever it's put.

[Julie S.]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Hi Bethers!

Holy moly! I never even knew this was something "bad"! I've seen this done on many other respectable sites... so I assumed this advice and practice was "common".

I was thinking that if I didn't go ahead and do some of these little "common optimization" things that I might not have any customers cuz no one would ever find my site.

Boy, do I feel like a heel now... I HATE that word - "spam". I'll be getting rid of that part of my site as soon as I get back to my home computer!

I think I will use your idea about little links along the bottom for my pages... I've seen that done pretty commonly as well. Plus, I really think it would look nicer. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the little keywords blurb along the bottom anyway.

Thanks very much for the heads up on that whole thing! I never knew!

Julie

[ryanhitchings]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

How in the world can Google ban a website? Google is stupid and a big scam. But, Yes I like your site. I think you may beable to put in some menu bars so it is a little easier to point out. Byt otherwise, Nice site mate.

[Bethers]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Julie, Go ahead and put a footer - or even another paragraph of text - describe your jewelry in it - but make sure it's good for your visitors.

And for those who think Google (and the other se's don't pay attention) - read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4685750.stm

I'm sure BMW didn't like the fact that the Google spiders recognized "black hat" techniques and quit referring them. We need the se's to do their job - and I think it's a good thing that they want the websites to be for the customer's! And optimizing the white hat way works just as well in the long run.

[Julie S.]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Tadahhh!

Okay... my site is all done! All of my item detail pages and everything. It was a LONG night! hehe

No more (singing) "spam, spam, spam, spam..." on the bottom. =D

Whew! Now I can focus on making some more jewelry to put up! Yay!


Thanks for all the great input!
Julie

[naghosthunter]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

much better julie oh and google cant ban a site all they can do is ban your site from there search engines. but anything with the word sp** will get spidered and their webcrawlers don't know what your intentions are so it uses that 4 letter word against you for the bad even though it was unintentional. oh yeah bethers knows her stuff so i listen to those who has been on way longer than people who just started out .

[royb]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Nicely designed site. The colours are very pleasant and make it easy on the eye. The text is clear and all the links work quickly.

[Dori]

Re: Site Redesign (Again)

Great site! The jewelry is beautiful, the site offers an artistic flair but does not over shadow your merchandise... very important. Nice color choices....
dori